"Through genetic testing, a woman who received artificial insemination in 1991 discovered the biological father of her child was not her husband, as she had assumed," the university statement said.

The University of Utah is investigating what it calls "credible information" that a woman at a Salt Lake City area clinic was artificially inseminated with sperm, not from her husband, but from a part-time lab employee.

The school released a statement saying no records remained at the now-closed lab, Reproductive Medical Technologies Inc, to prove the woman's claim, and that the part-time employee died in 1999.

A University of Utah spokeswoman on Friday declined to comment beyond the statement, which said the university did not own or operate the lab, but contracted with it for specimen preparation and semen analysis.

"Through genetic testing, a woman who received artificial insemination in 1991 discovered the biological father of her child was not her husband, as she had assumed," the university statement said. "She traced the genetics of her child to a man who was a former employee of a now-defunct medical lab, Reproductive Medical Technologies Inc."

Three of the clinic's owners were faculty or staff at the University of Utah, which also owned an adjacent lab, and the employee whose sperm was involved also worked part-time at RMTI between 1988 and 1993, the statement said.